Shkas machine gun - aviation weapons - army aviation - catalog of articles - weapons of war, weapons of war. Shkas aviation machine gun: history of creation

ShKAS (Shpitalny-Komaritsky aviation rapid-firing) is the first Soviet rapid-firing aviation machine gun.

In 1920, while working as a mechanic at one of the factories, Shpitalny set out to make a high-speed machine gun. But at that time he did not have the necessary experience and lacked knowledge. After graduating from the Moscow Mechanical Institute, the young engineer began to implement his plan and soon presented a project for such a machine gun, which attracted attention with its exceptional courage in solving a number of complex issues in the design of automatic weapons. When the project was ready, experienced weapons designer I.A. Komaritsky was seconded to help Shpitalny in finalizing the sample and speeding its production.

1930 The first sample of a high-speed aircraft machine gun was manufactured, created by Shpitalny with the participation of Komaritsky. It was the first in the world aviation system, which immediately put the USSR in first place in this area of ​​​​weapons.

1932 The final debugging of the design was completed.

June 1932, the machine gun was presented to K. E. Voroshilov
On July 14, 1932, the machine gun was approved by the government, which decided to speed up its development and submit it for state testing.
On October 7, 1932, the Revolutionary Military Council approved the results of ground tests of the machine gun.
On October 11, 1932, he adopted a resolution on its adoption under the name “7.62-mm aviation rapid-fire machine gun of the Shpitalny-Komaritsky system, model 1932.”

Design Features
The system used the principle of automation based on the removal of part of the powder gases. Gases passing through the chamber closed type, exert pressure on the piston connected directly to the rod, which sets the system in motion. This principle of automation was later used to create a number of successful designs.
The barrel bore is locked by tilting the bolt downwards. The trigger mechanism operates from a recoil spring. The trigger mechanism ensures only continuous fire. It is equipped with a flag-type fuse that locks the sear. The cartridges are fed from a metal link detachable tape. The mechanism for feeding the tape to the drum-type receiver is driven by the bolt frame. Extraction of the spent cartridge case is carried out by the bolt legs, and its reflection is carried out by a movable reflector connected to the bolt frame rod. The machine gun is equipped with spring buffers for the bolt frame and bolt.
The high rate of fire in the ShKAS machine gun is achieved due to the short stroke of the moving parts of the automation and the combination of a number of reloading operations. To avoid dismantling the cartridge, its removal from the belt link is carried out in ten cycles of automatic operation, which is achieved through a screw groove on the gear casing. To soften the impacts of moving parts on the sear, during landing and after the end of the line, a buffer spring is installed.

Ammo
For the ShKAS machine gun, under the leadership of N. M. Elizarov, cartridges were developed that had tracer, incendiary and combined action armor-piercing incendiary bullets capable of igniting gasoline tanks protected by armor. In these cartridges, to prevent the cartridge from being dismantled (dismantled) at a huge rate of fire of 30-50 rounds per second, the walls of the cartridge case are thickened, the fastening of the primer in the socket is strengthened, and a double ring crimp of the bullet is introduced in the barrel of the cartridge case. At the bottom of the cartridge case for ShKAS machine guns, in addition to the standard designations, the letter “Ш” was placed. The capsule is painted red. Otherwise, the coloring is standard for the corresponding types of bullets. Cartridges intended for infantry weapons could not be used in ShKAS machine guns. The cartridges for the ShKAS machine gun were the world's first aviation cartridges.

Unusual misfires
Unexpectedly, misfires occurred during shooting. A special commission was created to find out the reasons. It was headed by Chief Marshal of Artillery N.N. Voronov.
“We organized experimental shooting. They showed that all questionable cartridges in ordinary rifles, hand and heavy machine guns ground forces work flawlessly, and in aircraft machine guns continue to misfire. It also turned out that there are some batches of cartridges that do not misfire when fired from ShKAS. But no one could establish exactly which ones and why. At the next meeting of the commission, I drew attention to the samples of combat capsules lying on the table. I began to examine them carefully and discovered one detail: the foil at the attachment point with the capsule was coated with black or red varnish. The red varnish was imported, and the black varnish was domestic. New shootings were carried out. Capsules coated with imported varnish did not misfire. The second ones, on the contrary, misfired. All cartridges with primers coated with black varnish were immediately withdrawn from the Air Force and transferred for use in ground forces. Air Force began to be supplied with cartridges with primers coated with red varnish. The commission also proposed conducting a thorough study of domestic varnish. It turned out that our chemists did not finish the job: the varnish they proposed had a harmful effect on the foil. It was proposed to urgently eliminate this defect. Soon a new varnish was created that fully met the requirements for it. The misfires have stopped."

Modernization
With all the advantages of the ShKAS system machine guns, their first releases were made according to drawings prototype, had an insufficient resource - about 1500-2000 shots.
In March 1933, the Soviet government, placing an order for the first large batch of machine guns, suggested that the designers increase their survivability, bringing it to 5,000 rounds.
In April 1933, Shpitalny and Komaritsky presented a model that differed from its predecessor not only in better survivability, but also in some changes that had a positive effect on the simplicity of the machine gun design. In the new model, its main part - the box - was significantly changed, five new parts were introduced instead of the thirteen that were eliminated. These alterations entailed a significant number of changes in dimensions and tolerances of mating parts.
In July 1933, production of machine guns began according to new drawings.
On December 24, 1934, testing of the ShKAS machine gun with a twisted three-core return spring was completed. The previous recoil spring often failed, unable to withstand more than 2500-2800 rounds. We tried different types of steel, changed the diameter of the springs and the thickness of the wire, but nothing helped, and after a certain number of shots, the shooting had to be stopped to replace the spring. An original solution was found by Shpitalny, who proposed making the spring multi-stranded. Tests have shown that the survivability of a twisted three-core recoil spring is equal to 14,000 rounds.
In 1935-1936 K.N. Rudnev, V.N. Polyubin and A.A. Tronenkov developed a mechanical pairing of ShKAS machine guns, in which the total rate of fire of the two machine guns was increased to 6000-6400 rounds per minute.
On May 15, 1937, Shpitalny and Komaritsky completed the production of a prototype of the UltraShKAS machine gun. By using the principle of a moving barrel when moving forward, they achieved a rate of fire of 2800-3000 rounds per minute.

Since 1936, machine guns of the ShKAS system have occupied a dominant position in the weapon system of Soviet aviation.

7.62 mm aviation rapid-fire machine gun

For the first time ShKAS were used on Soviet fighters in air battles in November 1936 over Madrid (at the same time SB bombers, also carrying ShKAS, fought in the skies of Spain). A year later, I-15 and I-16 armed with them fought with Japanese aircraft over China. ShKAS proved themselves both in the battles at Khalkhin Gol and in the Soviet-Finnish war.

The machine gun design was developed by designer Boris Gavriilovich Shpitalny with the help of Irinarkh Andreevich Komaritsky. I.A. took part in its revision. Pastukhov, P.K. Morozenko, A.A. Tronenko, M.A. Mamontov, G.I. Nikitin, K.N. Rudnev, I.P. Somov. The machine gun was put into service on October 11, 1932, but then another two years were spent on technological refinement and some simplification of the design, so that mass production began only at the beginning of 1934. As a result, the weapon was given the designation “7.62 mm aviation rapid-fire machine gun systems of Shpitalny and Komaritsky arr. 1934 (ShKAS)." Its fine-tuning continued even after the start of production in Tula. A lot of work carried out by a group of specialists under the leadership of a major gunsmith P.I. Maina. I.V. honed his design skills at ShKAS. Savin, A.K. Norov, S.A. Yartsev, N.F. Tokarev.

The automatic machine gun operated by removing powder gases; power was supplied from a loose metal link belt. The design consisted of a barrel with a casing, a receiver with a cover, a bolt frame with a rod and a piston, a bolt, gears, a casing gear, a feed lever and its cover, a coupling with a loading handle, a reflector, a sleeve catcher, a trigger mechanism, and a butt plate.

The barrel was secured in the casing with a cracker joint. The barrel chamber is of a floating type, that is, with longitudinal grooves on the walls extending beyond the front cut of the sleeve (Revelli grooves). After the shot, part of the powder gases rushed into the grooves, reducing the pressure difference on the walls of the cartridge case and the force of its adhesion to the walls of the chamber. This facilitated extraction and prevented the sleeve from rupturing when high speeds shutter movement. A transverse gas outlet hole was made in the barrel wall 180 mm from the muzzle. A closed-type gas chamber was located above the barrel and was equipped with a plug - a gas regulator with three holes with diameters of 2.5, 3.0 and 3.5 mm. The casing with the barrel was attached to the receiver with a coupling. The barrel was cooled by air, although in 1939 a water-cooled version was also tested.

The leading link of the automation was the bolt frame, rigidly connected to the piston rod. A three-core return spring was placed in the rod channel. The barrel bore was locked by skewing the bolt downwards, while the rear beveled section of the bolt stood on the combat stop of the receiver behind the receiving window. Locking and unlocking of the bolt was carried out by a figured vertical protrusion of the bolt frame. Total weight the moving system was 921 g, the backward movement speed was from 9.0 (with a 2.5 mm gas outlet) to 12.1 m/s (with a 3.5 mm hole).

The firing pin was mounted in the bolt. The shot was fired from the rear sear, which is natural for a machine gun with a high barrel heating. The combat platoon was located on the left side of the bolt frame. The trigger mechanism was assembled in a separate housing; to increase survivability, a sear buffer spring was introduced into it. When the bolt frame came to its extreme forward position (that is, after the bolt was locked), its protrusion hit the firing pin.

The main “highlight” of the ShKAS was the power supply system, which, in fact, made it possible to achieve such a high rate of fire - 1800 rounds/min. The cartridge was fed by a gear (drum) with 10 slots, rotating on a longitudinal axis inside a stationary casing. A screw groove was made on the gear axis and the inner surface of the casing. When the piston rod moved backward, its curved ridge pressed on the drive roller of the feed lever, which swung in a horizontal plane, and turned it to the left. The lever turned the gear with its finger. The cartridge, picked up by the gear, entered the rim of the sleeve into the screw groove. In one automation cycle, the gear rotated 1/10 of a turn, while the cartridge slid along the screw groove, was removed from the loose belt link and moved back.

Thus, the removal of the cartridge from the belt and its feeding occurred smoothly - the cartridge approached the receiving window of the receiver in a full turn, i.e. 10 shots. Here it was picked up by a lever feeder and pressed against the receiving window, holding it raised upward. This made it possible to reduce the length of the shutter stroke. Continuous operation of the feed mechanism, reducing the speed of movement of the belt and cartridge when feeding it to the dispensing line prevented their damage, destruction or distortion (however, the strength of the cartridge case and the bullet fastening in it for aviation cartridges still had to be increased). In addition, the described system made it possible to reduce the length of the weapon, which is important for placement on an aircraft. When loading the machine gun, it was necessary to release the gear, bring the cartridge belt to it and, using the folding loading handle, turn the gear, inserting 8-9 rounds into it, then turn on the feeder.

The ejection mechanism was no less ingeniously designed. His work was divided into two stages. When moving backward, the bolt frame rotated the reflector in the transverse plane. He pushed the cartridge case out of the bolt legs into the side socket of the receiver, where it was held by a spring-loaded cartridge case catcher. From here it was pushed through the sleeve outlet hole by the protrusion of the rod when moving forward.

Spring buffers for the bolt frame and bolt were mounted in the buttplate. They not only softened the impact of the moving system in the rear position, but also increased the initial speed of its return forward. In combination with the short shutter stroke and the timing of reloading operations, this reduced the duration of the automation cycle and increased the rate of fire.

ShKAS was a first in many respects. Preceding him were PV-1 A.V. Nadashkevich, DA and DA-2 by V.A-Degtyarev were a continuation of the experience of the First World War - adapted for aviation infantry machine guns"Maxim" and DP. ShKAS became the first specially aircraft machine gun, designed taking into account the requirements of its time. Continuous feed of the tape, multi-core return spring - this was implemented in ShKAS for the first time. It is also the first time that such a rate of fire has been achieved in single-barrel systems. In fact:

The 7.62-mm French belt-fed Darn aviation machine gun produced 1100-1200 rounds per minute, the English 7.7-mm Vickers-R (magazine-fed) - 1000, the American 7.62-mm Colt Browning "(tape) - 900, German 7.92-mm MG-17 (tape) - 1100.

ShKAS was used in three versions. The I-16 fighter was the first to receive this weapon - in the form of wing-mounted machine guns without sighting devices, with a cable reloading mechanism and a system of cables for descent.

In the turret version, a front sight vane (or front sight) stand was attached to the muzzle of the barrel, a ring sight (rear sight) stand was attached to the casing, and a holding handle was attached to the butt plate. There was a control handle with a trigger connected to the sear through a transfer lever. The safety lever locked the sear. The reloading handle served to move the moving system to the rearmost position and remained motionless during firing. The barrel casing has changed. The turret installation was developed by N.F. Tokarev. For example, the TB-3-AM-34RN bomber had four Tur-8 installations. Later, with the creation of new aircraft, other versions of turret (blister) installations were developed.

Finally, in 1936, a synchronous version was adopted (ShKAS model 1936), developed by K.N. Rudnev, V.P. Kotov, V.N. Salishchev. The synchronizer, allowing firing through the propeller, reduced its rate to 1650 rounds/min, but slightly lengthening the bullet acceleration path increased the initial speed to 800-850 m/s.

Development by N.M. Elizarov variants of a rifle cartridge with an armor-piercing incendiary, tracer, and incendiary bullet completed the formation of an aviation machine gun complex.

The production of ShKAS aircraft was continuously increasing: if in 1933 365 of them were assembled in a semi-handicraft way, and in 1934 - 2,476, then in 1937 - 13,005, in 1940 - 34,233. True, aviation weapons aroused greater interest at the beginning of the war. large calibers- for 1941, they planned to produce only 3,500 ShKAS machine guns and 30,000 spare barrels for them. Let us list the types of aircraft on which the ShKAS were mounted: fighters I-16, I-153, Yak-1, Yak-7, LaGG-3, MiG-3, attack aircraft Il-2, bombers TB-3, TB-7, SB, Su-2, He-2, Tu-2, Il-4, Er-2, U-2 (Po-2), reconnaissance aircraft R5-SSS, P-Z, Be-2 (ship), military versions of Li-2. ShKASs were also installed instead of DShKs on the G-5 and D-3 torpedo boats.

Turret mounting of a ShKAS machine gun on an SB bomber

In 1939 it was accepted and graduated in small quantity“super-fast-firing” Ultra-ShKAS - the automation cycle time in it was reduced, giving the barrel a forward movement after unlocking. The SB was equipped with bow installations with twin ShKAS. In 1935 - 1937 K.N. Rudnev, V.N. Polyubin, A.A. Tropenkov worked on the so-called mechanical twin ShKAS (MSSh) - organically twin ShKAS with a rate of fire of up to 6000-6400 rounds/min. The machine gun rods were equipped with gear racks and connected by a gear - the automation cycle included two shot cycles, and the maximum recoil force did not exceed its value with one shot. But it is significant that further work in this direction were interrupted due to the planned transition to heavy machine guns.

ShKAS brought Shpitalny fame. Fast-paced career was a typical occurrence in the early 30s. Having first appeared among weapons designers around 1930, Boris Gavriilovich already in 1934 received the Special Design Bureau (OKB-15), which he led until 1953. Great support for the OKB was provided by Ordzhonikidze and Tukhachevsky. acted in a way star system“, when in any area one “best” was elected, the one most protected by the authorities. Shpitalny became such in the field of artillery and small arms of aviation. He also came into the sight of Stalin. In 1940, he, along with other designers, received the Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences. Stalin Prizes in 1941 and 1942, two Orders of Lenin, Order of Suvorov 3rd degree, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, Order of the Red Star... Alas, he was unable to avoid the “star sickness”. In any case, B.L. Vannikov, who did a lot for the establishment and development of the production of ShKAS, who closely communicated with Shpitalny before the war, when he was People's Commissar of Armaments, and V.N. Novikov, Deputy People's Commissar of Armaments during the war, left not the most unpleasant memories of Shpitalny.

The designer failed to repeat the success of ShKAS. True, S.V. On its basis, Vladimirov first created a 12.7-mm machine gun, and then a 20-mm ShVAK automatic cannon (by the way, one of the first production samples of bicaliber weapons). By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the 20-mm ShVAK and 7.62-mm ShKAS were the main and most popular weapons of the Red Army Air Force aircraft. The ShVAK even became a tank gun (TNSh-20). But the war, as the most cruel examiner, buried Shpitalny’s hopes for a “monopoly”. ShKAS began to be replaced on aircraft by the 12.7 mm UB system M.E. Berezina. The ShVAK was first partially replaced by the 23-mm VYA-23 A.A. Volkova and S.A. Yartsev, and since 1944 - B-20 Berezina. OKB-15 of Shpitalny began to regularly lose to OKB-16 of A.E. Nudelman - 37-mm Sh-37 cannon, at the suggestion of the People's Commissar of Armaments D.F. Ustinov, from the end of 1942 they were replaced in production by the NS-37. Shpitalny failed to hand over the 37-mm gun as an anti-aircraft or tank gun. The Nudelman Design Bureau bypassed Shpitalny and in work on the 45-mm, a new 20-mm cannon, after the war - on the 23- and 30-mm, he lost the competition for the new 12.7-mm machine gun to A.M. Afanasyev. He did not achieve much success in competitions for a submachine gun and an anti-tank rifle.

Performance characteristics:

Caliber, mm - 7.62
Weight (turret), kg - 10.5
Rate of fire, shots/min - 1800
Initial speed, m/s - 825

Revolving Battery Gun

The beginning of the quest to produce the fastest-firing weapons in the world can be considered the creation of a rapid-firing machine gun by Dr. Gatling in 1862. It was then that Richard Gatling patented the Revolving Battery Gun - a multi-barreled machine gun with rotating barrels. The rate of fire of this gun ranged from 400 (at early models with manual drive) up to 3000 rounds per minute (in later ones, with electric drive). Almost 150 years have passed since then, and the principles used in this machine gun remain unchanged.

The principle of a rotary machine gun, which was used in the Gatling machine gun, was also in demand in the 20th century.

XM 134, XM 214 and our answer

Some of the popular machine guns were the six-barreled XM 134 and XM 214, with calibers of 7.62 and 5.54 mm. Their rate of fire reached 10,000 rounds per minute. They had 30 kg of ammunition, which the machine gun could “spit out” in a minute of shooting, power was supplied to them via a cable, and the recoil of 110 kg did not allow them to be fired hand-held. Another similar “toy” was the 20 mm Vulcan aircraft gun, which weighed 136 kg and fired 6,000 rounds per minute.

But our analogue to imported models, the GSh-6-23M, with its rate of fire of 10,000 rounds per minute, turned out to be twice lighter and more reliable, since it is not an electric motor, but the energy of powder gases that is used to rotate the barrels. Its recoil recoil is 5 tons and its recoil is 3.5 tons. This gun is designed to destroy ground and air targets, including cruise missiles. Installed on MiG-31, Su-24 aircraft. This particular gun is the fastest-firing gun in the world, although not the fastest-firing weapon overall.

Just a barrage of fire!

The next step in the world of rapid fire was the development of a rifle system with a combat rate of fire exceeding one million rounds per minute. Mike O Dwyer ( Mike O Dwyer) from the Australian company Metal Storm, a 36-barrel installation was invented in the late 1990s, which showed more than a million rounds per minute in test firing. Naturally, a million bullets were not fired, but nevertheless, the rate of fire record was recorded after 540 shots from this installation.

Operating principles

Conventional mechanisms and charges cannot operate at such a speed, so the installation from Metal Storm used special ammunition, which is a barrel in which bullets are placed sequentially, and between them is a flammable accelerating mixture. To fire a shot, an electronic ignition method is used, which makes it possible to achieve perfect accuracy of the delay between shots.

It is this installation from Metal Storm that is today the fastest-firing weapon in the world.

Svetlana Grushina, Samogo.Net

Since the advent of firearms, the military has been concerned with increasing their rate of fire. Since the 15th century, gunsmiths have tried to achieve this in the only way available at that time - by increasing the number of barrels.

Such multi-barreled guns were called organs or ribodeckens. However, the name “rapid-firing” did not suit such systems: although it was possible to simultaneously fire a salvo from large quantity barrels, further reloading required a lot of time. And with the advent of buckshot, multi-barreled guns completely lost their meaning. But in the 19th century they were revived again - thanks to a man who, with the best intentions, wanted to reduce combat losses

In the second half of the 19th century, the military was extremely puzzled by the decline in the effectiveness of artillery against infantry. For the usual shot with buckshot, it was necessary to bring the enemy within 500-700 m, and the new long range rifles, which entered service with the infantry, simply did not allow this to be done. However, the invention of the unitary cartridge marked a new direction in the development of firearms: increasing the rate of fire. As a result, several options for solving the problem appeared almost simultaneously. The French gunsmith de Reffy designed a mitrailleuse, consisting of 25 fixed barrels of 13 mm caliber, capable of firing up to 5-6 salvoes per minute. In 1869, the Belgian inventor Montigny improved this system, increasing the number of barrels to 37. But mitrailleuses were very bulky and were not particularly widespread. A fundamentally different solution was required.

Good Doctor

Richard Gatling was born on September 12, 1818 in Hartford County (Connecticut) into a farmer's family. Since childhood, he was interested in inventing, helping his father repair agricultural equipment. Richard received his first patent (for a seeder) at the age of 19. But, despite his hobby, he decided to become a doctor and in 1850 he graduated medical college in Cincinnati. However, the passion for invention won out. In the 1850s, Gatling invented several mechanical seeders and the propeller new system, but the most famous invention did it later. On November 4, 1862, he received patent number 36,836 for a design that forever inscribed his name in the history of weapons - the Revolving Battery Gun. Nevertheless, the author of the deadly invention, as befits a doctor, had the best feelings for humanity. Gatling himself wrote about it this way: “If I could create a mechanical shooting system, which, thanks to its rate of fire, would allow one person to replace a hundred shooters on the battlefield, the need for large armies would be eliminated, which would lead to a significant reduction in human losses.” (After Gatling’s death, Scientific American published an obituary that included the following words: “This man had no equal in kindness and warmth. He believed that if the war became even more terrible, the people would finally lose the desire to resort to weapons.”)

Gatling's merit did not lie in the fact that he was the first to make a multi-barreled weapon - as already noted, multi-barreled systems were no longer a novelty by that time. And it’s not that he arranged the barrels “revolver-style” (this design was widely used in hand-held firearms). Gatling designed an original mechanism for feeding cartridges and ejecting cartridges. A block of several barrels was rotated around its axis, under the influence of gravity, a cartridge from the tray entered the barrel at the top point, then a shot was fired using a firing pin, with further rotation from the barrel to lowest point again, under the influence of gravity, the cartridge case was extracted. The drive of this mechanism was manual; using a special handle, the shooter rotated the block of barrels and fired. Of course, such a scheme was not yet fully automatic, but it had a number of advantages. At first, mechanical reloading was more reliable than automatic reloading: weapons of early designs constantly jammed. But even this simple mechanics ensured a fairly high rate of fire for those times. The barrels overheated and became contaminated with soot (which was a significant problem since black powder was widely used at the time) much slower than single-barreled weapons.

Machine guns

The Gatling system usually consisted of 4 to 10 barrels of 12-40 mm caliber and allowed firing at a distance of up to 1 km with a rate of fire of about 200 rounds per minute. In terms of firing range and rate of fire, it was superior to conventional artillery pieces. In addition, the Gatling system was quite cumbersome and was usually placed on carriages from light guns, so it was considered artillery weapons, and it was often not entirely correctly called a “shotgun” (in fact, this weapon is correctly called a machine gun). Before the adoption of the Petersburg Convention of 1868, which prohibited the use of explosive projectiles weighing less than 1 pound, there were Gatling guns and large caliber, firing explosive shells and shrapnel.

There was a Civil War in America, and Gatling offered his weapons to the northerners. However, the Ordnance Department was inundated with proposals for the use of new types of weapons from various inventors, so despite the successful demonstration, Gatling failed to receive an order. True, some copies of the Gatling machine gun did see a little battle at the end of the war, proving themselves to be quite good. After the war, in 1866, the American government nevertheless placed an order for 100 copies of the Gatling gun, which were produced by Colt under the Model 1866 label. Such guns were installed on ships, and they were also adopted by the armies of other countries. British troops used Gatling guns in 1883 to quell a rebellion in Port Said, Egypt, where the weapon earned a fearsome reputation. Russia also became interested in it: the Gatling gun was adapted here by Gorlov and Baranovsky for the Berdanov cartridge and put into service. Later, the Gatling system was repeatedly improved and modified by the Swede Nordenfeld, the American Gardner, and the British Fitzgerald. Moreover, we were talking not only about machine guns, but also about small-caliber cannons - a typical example is the 37-mm five-barreled Hotchkiss gun, adopted by the Russian fleet in 1881 (a 47-mm version was also produced).

But the monopoly on rate of fire did not last long - soon the name “machine gun” was assigned to automatic weapons that worked on the principles of using powder gases and recoil for reloading. The first such weapon was the Hiram Maxim machine gun, which used smokeless powder. This invention pushed the Gatlings into the background, and then completely forced them out of the armies. The new single-barrel machine guns had a significantly higher rate of fire, were easier to manufacture and less bulky.

Eruption of Vulcan

Ironically, the revenge of the Gatlings over single-barreled automatic guns took place more than half a century later, after the Korean War, which became a real testing ground for jet aircraft. Despite their fierceness, the battles between the F-86 and MiG-15 showed the low effectiveness of the artillery weapons of the new jet fighters, which migrated from their piston ancestors. Aircraft of that time were armed with entire batteries of several barrels with calibers ranging from 12.7 to 37 mm. All this was done in order to increase the second salvo: after all, a continuously maneuvering enemy aircraft was kept in sight for only a fraction of a second and to defeat it it was necessary to create short time enormous density of fire. At the same time, single-barrel guns almost reached the “design” limit of rate of fire - the barrel overheated too quickly. An unexpected solution came naturally: the American corporation General Electric began experiments with... old guns Gatling, taken from museums. The block of barrels was spun by an electric motor, and the 70-year-old gun immediately produced a rate of fire of more than 2000 rounds per minute (interestingly, there is evidence of the installation of an electric drive on Gatling guns back in late XIX century; this made it possible to achieve a rate of fire of several thousand rounds per minute - but at that time such an indicator was not in demand). The development of the idea was the creation of a gun that opened an entire era in the arms industry - the M61A1 Vulcan.

Vulcan is six-barreled gun weighing 190 kg (without ammunition), length 1800 mm, caliber 20 mm and rate of fire 6000 rounds per minute. The Vulcan automation is powered by an external electric drive with a power of 26 kW. Ammunition supply is linkless, carried out from a drum magazine with a capacity of 1000 shells along a special sleeve. Spent cartridges are returned to the magazine. This decision was made after an incident with the F-104 Starfighter, when spent cartridges ejected by the cannon were thrown back by the air flow and severely damaged the fuselage of the aircraft. The enormous rate of fire of the gun also led to unforeseen consequences: the vibrations that arose during firing forced the rate of fire to be changed in order to eliminate resonance of the entire structure. The recoil of the gun also brought a surprise: in one of the test flights of the ill-fated F-104, during firing, the Vulcan fell off the carriage and, continuing to fire, turned the entire nose of the aircraft with shells, while the pilot miraculously managed to eject. However, after correcting these shortcomings, the US military received a light and reliable weapon that has served faithfully for decades. M61 guns are used on many aircraft and in anti-aircraft complex Mk.15 Phalanx, designed to destroy low-flying aircraft and cruise missiles. Based on the M61A1, a six-barreled rapid-fire machine gun M134 Minigun with a caliber of 7.62 mm was developed, thanks to computer games and filming in numerous films, becoming the most famous among all “Gatlings”. The machine gun is designed for installation on helicopters and ships.

Most powerful gun with a rotating barrel block was the American GAU-8 Avenger, designed for installation on the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. The 30-mm seven-barreled cannon is designed to fire primarily at ground targets. It uses two types of ammunition: high-explosive fragmentation shells PGU-13/B and armor-piercing PGU-14/B with an increased initial speed with a depleted uranium core. Since the gun and the aircraft were originally designed specifically for each other, firing from the GAU-8 does not lead to severe disruption of the A-10's controllability. When designing the aircraft, it was also taken into account that powder gases from the gun should not enter the engines aircraft(this may lead to their stopping) - special reflectors are installed for this. But during the operation of the A-10, it was noticed that unburned powder particles settle on the blades of engine turbochargers and reduce thrust, and also lead to increased corrosion. To prevent this effect, electric afterburners are built into the aircraft's engines. The ignition devices are switched on automatically when the fire is opened. At the same time, according to the instructions, after each ammunition fired, the A-10 engines must be washed to remove soot. Although during combat use the gun did not show high efficiency, the psychological effect of use was great - when a stream of fire literally pours from the sky, it is very, very scary...

Soviet response

In the USSR, work on rapid-fire guns began with the development of shipborne short-range air defense systems. The result was the creation of a family of anti-aircraft guns designed at the Tula Precision Instrumentation Design Bureau. 30-mm AK-630 cannons still form the basis of the air defense of our ships, and the modernized machine gun is part of the Kortik naval anti-aircraft missile and gun system.

Our country realized late the need to have an analogue of the Vulcan in service, so almost ten years passed between the tests of the GSh-6−23 cannon and the decision to adopt it for service. The rate of fire of the GSh-6−23, which is installed on the Su-24 and MiG-31 aircraft, is 9000 rounds per minute, and the initial rotation of the barrels is carried out by standard PPL squibs (and not electric or hydraulic drives, as in American analogues), which made it possible significantly increase the reliability of the system and simplify its design. After the squib is fired and the first projectile is fired, the barrel block spins up using the energy of the powder gases removed from the barrel channels. The cannon can be fed with shells either linkless or link-based.

The 30-mm GSh-6−30 gun was designed on the basis of the AK-630 shipborne anti-aircraft gun. With a rate of fire of 4,600 rounds per minute, it is capable of sending a 16-kilogram salvo at a target in 0.25 seconds. According to eyewitnesses, a 150-round burst from the GSh-6−30 resembled a clap of thunder more than a burst, and the plane was enveloped in a bright fiery glow. This gun, which had excellent accuracy, was installed on MiG-27 fighter-bombers instead of the standard GSh-23 double-barreled gun. The use of the GSh-6−30 against ground targets forced the pilots to exit the dive sideways in order to protect themselves from fragments of their own shells, which rose to a height of 200 m. The enormous recoil force also caused criticism: unlike its American “colleague” A-10, the MiG- 27 was not originally designed for such powerful artillery. Therefore, due to vibrations and shocks, equipment failed, aircraft components were deformed, and in one of the flights, after a long line in the pilot’s cockpit, the instrument panel fell off - the pilot had to return to the airfield, holding it in his hands.

Firearms Gatling schemes are practically the limit of the rate of fire of mechanical weapon systems. Despite the fact that modern high-speed single-barrel guns use liquid barrel cooling, which significantly reduces its overheating, systems with a rotating barrel block are still more suitable for long-term firing.

The effectiveness of the Gatling scheme makes it possible to successfully carry out the tasks assigned to the weapon, and this weapon rightfully occupies a place in the arsenals of all armies of the world.

In addition, this is one of the most spectacular and cinematic types of weapons. Firing a Gatling gun in itself is an excellent special effect, and the menacing appearance of the barrels spinning before firing made these guns the most memorable weapon in Hollywood action films and computer games.

The first half of the 20th century became a golden period for the aviation industry, which managed to accumulate all the most latest achievements science and technology. It was in the aircraft industry that the most advanced technologies, newly created engines, instruments and weapons were used for the first time, and new materials were tested. Representatives of other industries also followed developments in the aviation industry. In the mid-1930s, one of the numerous examples interaction between Soviet aircraft and tank construction was an attempt to install the ShKAS aircraft machine gun on the T-37A amphibious tank. It is worth noting that in Soviet history There have been successful examples of such interaction. In a very difficult period for the country, when German soldiers stood near Moscow, and the Red Army lost almost all of its tanks, not the most advanced and very simple lungs T-60 tanks, which were mastered by Soviet industry in a short time. These combat vehicles were armed with a 20-mm TNSh cannon, which was a tank version of the ShVAK aircraft cannon. The gun was originally developed as an aircraft gun; the designers did not plan to install it on ground-based military equipment, but in war conditions they were able to quickly adapt it for installation on light tank. But the first attempts to install aviation weapons on the tank were undertaken in the Soviet Union even before the start of World War II.

Back in 1930, the USSR designed the country's first machine gun, created specifically for aviation - it was the 7.62-mm ShKAS (Shpitalny-Komaritsky aviation rapid-fire). It became the first Soviet rapid-firing synchronous aircraft machine gun. It was mass-produced from 1932 to 1945, when it was replaced by new models. New aviation cartridges of increased reliability with armor-piercing incendiary and armor-piercing bullets were created especially for the ShKAS machine gun. The machine gun was placed on everything soviet planes, which were issued from 1934 to 1941, and were used in all armed conflicts involving the USSR, starting with civil war in Spain and ending with the battles of the Great Patriotic War. The machine gun was produced in wing-mounted, turret-mounted and synchronized versions.

Ball installation ShKAS, RGVA

In the aviation versions of the ShKAS machine gun, the belt was fed from a box for 250 rounds, in later versions - for 750 and 1000 rounds. Some machine guns had specially installed cartridge boxes for 1,500 rounds. In the T-37A tank, the machine gun was powered from a box with 750 rounds of ammunition. In addition, the body of the combat vehicle contained a supply of 2000 rounds of ammunition. The total ammunition capacity of the machine gun was 2,750 rounds in belts of 250 pieces, which were located inside the tank as follows: three belts were placed in a box that directly fed the machine gun. And 2000 rounds of ammunition were placed in boxes of 250 rounds each, which were inserted into a special grid holder with slots for 7 boxes. Another box of cartridges lay separately. The cartridges were fed from the box using a flexible metal sleeve, which was similar to those used in aviation. This device made it possible to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the machine gun when firing at any aiming angle in both the vertical and horizontal planes.

The main difference between the ShKAS tank machine gun and the aviation one was that, at the request of GABTU specialists, it was transferred to a fabric belt instead of a loose metal belt. This was explained quite simply: it was easier to fill the fabric tape with cartridges, and there was no need to collect the links that had scattered after firing into a special container. In addition, there was a risk that loose belt links could accidentally end up in moving parts inside the tank, jamming them. To switch to a fabric belt, the receiver and the supply of cartridges in the machine gun were changed.

Based on the results of the tests, the experiment with installing the ShKAS machine gun in the turret of the T-37A amphibious tank was considered unsuccessful. A number of reasons were identified: small vertical aiming angles of the machine gun, low reliability of the fabric tape, which was sensitive to humidity, swelled and then tore, causing distortions at such high tempo shooting. Working to eliminate these problems took a lot of time from the commander of the combat vehicle. But even without problems with the belt, the ShKAS machine gun turned out to be too complex and inconvenient for the small and cramped turret of the T-37A tank. The military also considered the machine gun’s too high rate of fire to be a disadvantage. The entire ammunition could be shot in literally 5 minutes of battle, even taking into account the time to replace the boxes. It was also noted that the ShKAS required special, more reliable cartridges, which Soviet industry could not provide in sufficient quantities to both aviation and tank units.

Aiming the machine gun vertically.

One thing is certain: installing a ShKAS machine gun with a rate of fire of 1800 rounds per minute on an amphibious tank could have a strong moral impact on the enemy. Famous single German machine gun The MG-42 had a rate of fire of 1200-1500 rounds per minute, depending on the bolt. It was a terrible weapon that all opponents had to face Hitler's Germany, it’s not for nothing that it has earned such nicknames as Hitler’s lawnmower and circular saw. Soviet aviation ShKAS In terms of rate of fire, it was superior to him. 1800 rounds per minute is 30 rounds per second. At the same time, the human eye perceives the image as smooth and continuous already at a frequency of 18 Hz or 18 frames per second. The generally accepted standard in cinema is 24 frames per second. With a rate of fire of 1800 rounds/min and the use of tracer ammunition, a visual effect could arise in which the firing from the tank would be perceived by the eye as continuous rays stretching towards the enemy. When attacking tanks from water at night, the effect would be especially strong.